


Not His Pet

by everythingmurky



Series: Grumpy Scot and His Cat [2]
Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Gen, Light Angst, Season/Series 02, Some Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-18
Updated: 2017-01-18
Packaged: 2018-09-18 10:11:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9379826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everythingmurky/pseuds/everythingmurky
Summary: Ellie doesn't expect to find Hardy with a cat. She should be grateful he didn't name it "Ellie" or "Miller," since it apparently works cases with him now.





	

**Author's Note:**

> After I finished the story where Hardy ends up with the cat, I figured Ellie had to find out about it. She just had to.
> 
> Honestly, I expected it to be a lot funnier than it turned out to be, but they bickered instead and almost tried to make it a case fic.
> 
> And here I thought the cat would only lead to domestic fluff. Which... is actually kind of a pun, now that I look at my furball of a house cat.

* * *

Of all the things Ellie thought she'd find when she went by Alec Hardy's house, a cat wasn't one of them. She figured he'd be an even more miserable wreck if his daughter had refused to see him, maybe even put him back to his foot in the grave state he'd been in back in Broadchurch, but he didn't seem ill.

Maybe a bit tired. That had to be it, not that she couldn't hear it in his voice, but the fact that he was talking to the cat would have been proof enough.

“And if he didn't do it, why the bloody hell did he lie?” Hardy demanded, reaching over to thump the picture on his board. She assumed it was his main suspect. She wasn't expecting the cat to tap the picture after him.

Hardy looked down at it. “Ah, so you don't believe his story, either. Instincts are getting better. Still no Miller, though.”

She bit her lip, trying not to laugh. The idea of Hardy trying to pass on his grumpy copper wisdom to a cat was absolutely hilarious—and so damned unexpected that she couldn't really believe what she was seeing. She'd swear she'd gone off and gotten completely pissed, that none of this was real and she'd wake up hungover back in Broadchurch, unsettled by having dreamt about her former boss.

Hardy seemed to realize she was there, turning back toward the open door. She forced a smile.

“Sir.”

“How long have you been there?” Hardy demanded. “What do you think you're doing gawking in my doorway?”

“If you want your privacy so damned much, why don't you ever close your bloody door?” Ellie asked, since he'd been just as bad about it back in Broadchurch. Entire time she'd been at his house, she didn't think he'd shut the door once. She wasn't sure that Lee Ashworth needed to break in—he might just have done it to rattle Hardy.

“It's my bloody door,” he countered. She gave him a look. He grunted. “House gets stifling. Can't think if it's all shut up.”

She supposed she could believe that. “I'm surprised he doesn't run off on you.”

Hardy looked down at the cat. “Oh, Daisy was afraid of that at first, but for all he's the nosiest blighter around, he hasn't wandered off yet.”

“Daisy,” Ellie repeated. That made it all make sense, didn't it now? “It's your daughter's cat.”

“Aye,” Hardy agreed. “Daisy's always wanted one, and the tosser Tess is shagging is allergic, so it ended up here.”

Ellie could believe that, but she couldn't help pushing it, either. “Did you get a cat just to get your daughter back?”

“What the hell are you doing here, Miller?”

* * *

“You know how you were always on me for fresh eyes in the Sandbrook case?” Ellie asked, and Hardy looked torn between frowning and nodding. She figured he knew what she meant, but he wasn't sure why she'd seek him out for those eyes. He shouldn't be that surprised. He'd been a bit of a mentor, hadn't he? Or at least a partner. They'd solved Danny's murder together—she'd missed the truth, but he hadn't—and then Sandbrook, too.

She might have hated him, but she respected his skill. Not his manners, but he was, under them, a good copper. She hadn't thought so before knowing the truth of Sandbrook, but now that she did, she didn't think there was anyone else she would ask.

She only wanted his opinion on this case.

“Got work of my own, Miller,” he told her, gesturing back to the board, and she nodded. She had heard he'd been reinstated to active duty, and she was glad. He was a lousy teacher, for one thing, and she knew that all too well.

“Tit for tat?” Ellie suggested. “I'll help you with yours if you take a look at mine.”

“Who says I need help?”

She snorted. “You're talking to a cat about your case, and you think that you don't need help?”

He gave her a smile. Not a placating platitude type, not the kind he might use for interviews to coax reluctant truths, but one that was thoroughly amused. It was genuine, and it threw her. Completely. “Oh, you've been replaced, Miller.”

“What? I have not. I don't even work with you. You can't replace me. And not with a damned cat.”

“Yes, I can. I have,” Hardy told her. “You have any photos from your case?”

“What?”

“Photos,” he said, reaching over and taking the file from her. He laid them out across the table, and the cat padded over, putting its paws up on the side before mewing. Hardy stepped back, turning to her. “Watch this.”

She looked at him. “What are you on about now?”

He held up a hand, and a minute later, the cat jumped up on the table, circling around the photographs. He sat down on one, looking up at Hardy, and she wondered when he had taught the cat this trick. Then the cat jumped down, going off in a corner to roll about the floor.

“That's your man,” Hardy said, pointing to the picture the cat had sat on. She gave him a look. He shrugged. “He's been right the last three times. Sits right on the killer's face. Think I agree with the sentiment.”

“You're having me on,” she said, staring at him. “You don't actually believe your cat—”

“Daughter's cat.”

“—can find killers, do you?”

“Told you,” Hardy said, sounding rather smug. “You've been replaced.”

* * *

Ellie found herself making a pot of tea in Hardy's kitchen as the cat wove in and out under her feet. She swore Hardy's bloody replacement for her was trying to kill her as she worked. She looked down at it, still amazed that Hardy had given in to his daughter's whims. She'd always refused to get Tom a dog, but Hardy had gotten his daughter a cat.

A cat that was everywhere all at once and her replacement.

“I'm not your pet, you know.”

Hardy stopped in the middle of taking out two mugs from the cupboard. “This about what Claire said? Thought that didn't bother you.”

“Did I ever say it didn't?”

“No, which is odd for you since you witter on about everything,” Hardy said, placing the cups on the counter. “I never saw you as that. She said that to work against us, drive the wedge in, make you doubt me, just like Lee and his claim that I had sex with her.”

“You could have done it.”

“Oi. What do you take me for?” Hardy asked, frowning at her. She realized that she'd hurt him with the comment. He'd said not to talk about it, but it wasn't because he was hiding an affair. This accusation, this one stung, and she wondered just how much it had hurt him to have been accused of it with her by Joe's lawyers. He'd even tried to sleep in the car when there was only one room and one bed available.

“I think I gave her too much credit,” Ellie said. “She was manipulative. She seemed to have you fooled at first with her innocent victim act.”

“Didn't you hear the things Coates said to me?” Hardy asked. “Or Marshall? I'm bloody inhuman. No heart in me.”

That made Ellie snort. “You have a condition. And a cat. Haven't seen you with your daughter, but I can still tell you're a bleeding sop.”

He rolled his eyes. “Where's that file so I can look through it and you can go?”

“Where you left it, I suppose.”

* * *

He sat down on his sofa, tea in hand as he picked the file back up, reading through it. Ellie watched as the cat approached him, mewing, and he grunted in response. The orange fluff jumped up and into his lap, and he gave it a distracted pet with his left hand, still mulling over the file.

Ellie shook her head before going over to the board he'd been working on earlier. She remembered the photo he'd tapped and the question he asked of the fur. She started reading through every note, piecing together what she could from what was here, though she'd need a lot more than this. Hardy's notes weren't very detailed or very legible, for that matter.

“What makes you think he did it? Other than the lie about where he was?”

“Who?”

“This bloke. Avery Adams. What makes you think he wasn't just being a little shit about his alibi because of who he was supposedly with?”

“You're in for a treat now,” he told the cat. “Miller in the flesh.”

“Excuse me?” Ellie asked, turning back to him. “Thought the cat was better than me.”

“Oh, aye, and when you arrest that git, this one will be sitting here purring. 'Course, he does that even when people aren't arrested, so there you go,” Hardy said, making her want to laugh. “Adams wasn't just lying about who he was with or when. He lies like he's incapable of telling the truth.”

“You think he is?” Ellie looked at Hardy, still thrown off by him with the cat. “Incapable of telling the truth?”

“Think he enjoys the lie,” Hardy said, and she heard a thwack as the folder he'd been reading hit the table. “You know you don't need me on that one, Miller.”

“You're not really saying the cat is right,” Ellie said, and Hardy snorted. The cat had, actually, sat on the face of the man she'd like to arrest, but she couldn't prove anything, and certainly not the word of a bloody cat. “I don't believe this. I leave my kids with Lucy, drive up here, think I'll get a real opinion out of you, but you're still such a—”

“You already knew before you came who did it. You don't need me or my cat to confirm it,” Hardy insisted. “You think I can, what, pull evidence out of my arse to help you close it?”

“I need a way to break him. I've tried. He won't admit it, and I've got no forensics,” Ellie said. “I'm not asking for you to make it up. Just... I thought maybe you'd tell me I had it wrong, that there was someone else I could take on instead, someone I'd overlooked. Someone like...”

“Like Joe?”

She sighed. “Why does he have to taint everything?”

“He only can if you let him,” Hardy said, making her snort this time. “I let Sandbrook hang over me. I let it poison me and my heart. You don't have to give him that kind of power.”

“I need something. A way to make him panic. Something.”

He glanced down at the cat in his lap. “How does your boy feel about psychics?”

“You're not expecting me to ask Steve Connolly—”

“Cat already said he did it. Take that, play it the right way, you might get a panic out of him. All you have to say is you've got someone saying he's the one. Tell him, and then watch him,” Hardy advised. “Right, then, off with you.”

“Excuse me?”

Hardy dislodged the cat. It mewed at him. “Oh, shut it. We're saying goodbye to Miller now. She's got work to do. And so have I.”

* * *

“I got him.”

Hardy looked up from his file, his hand still in the middle of the cat's fur. She wasn't sure he was aware he did that, even if he did, he'd deny it. Even now, with her standing here, watching him do it, he'd probably say he'd never pet a cat in his life. “Oh. Good on you, then, Miller. Nice work.”

She shook her head. She'd say something about how he wasn't supposed to be nice to her, but that wasn't really nice. The words were, maybe, but he hadn't even been sarcastic with them. There'd been no emotion at all, save for his distraction.

“You're not answering your phone.”

“Threw it in the river,” Hardy said, and she stared at him. 

Then she swore. “Bloody hell. Another case went wrong? Tell me you didn't take the blame for one of your DSes again.”

The cat's head perked up. Hardy pushed it back down. “Not you.”

“What?”

“Daisy's idea of a joke,” Hardy said. “Named the bloody cat 'Detective Sergeant.' Stop purring, you impossible thing.”

The cat looked, if at all possible, more smug. “Don't see what you're on about. You weren't right about Hardy's case, were you?”

“Oh, he had the right man. Just... didn't expect a pathological liar to get all...”

“Violent?”

Hardy grunted. “That the best you can do, Miller?”

“Did you throw your phone in the same river?”

He didn't answer, but that was enough for her. His suspect hadn't struck her as the type, either, but then she hadn't thought Jack Marshall was. She hadn't expected him to do that, and she knew Hardy had been equally blindsided.

“It's not your fault.”

“Tell that to the press. Bloody vultures.”

“Do we need to start it up again?” Ellie asked, sitting down next to him. “The former detectives club? Seems we have us a mascot now.”

In spite of everything, Hardy looked at the cat and laughed.


End file.
